2012 Poll: Mitt Romney Leads Republicans in Florida, Bachmann and Palin Tie for Second

Mitt Romney is the man to beat in Florida as the 2012 Republican primary horse race heats up. Romney holds a ten-point advantage over second place finishers Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin. Romney also benefits from incredibly low support for similar candidates like John Hunstman and Tim Pawlenty in the sunshine state. In fact, as of right now, the only person who could beat Romney in Florida is Jeb Bush, but he's definitely not running.

The poll comes from Public Policy Polling, a firm that usually works for democratic candidates. Though, their numbers seems to shadow national trends.

Here are the results:

Given the choices of Michele Bachmann,

Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman,

Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, and Mitt

Romney, who would you most like to see as

the Republican candidate for President next

year?

Michele Bachmann 17%

Herman Cain 10%

Newt Gingrich 8%

Jon Huntsman 2%

Sarah Palin 17%

Ron Paul

7%

Tim Pawlenty 4%

Mitt Romney 27%

Someone else/Not sure 9%

Of course, Sarah Palin hasn't announced her intentions to run but the poll finds that if she stays out of the race, Romney would still win with his support rising to 29 percent. Though Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann would be the biggest benefactors of a Palin withdrawal. Their numbers would rise to 14 percent and 22 percent respectively.

PPP also asked voters to chose between Michele Bachmann, Jeb Bush, Chris

Christie, Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin, Tim

Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, and Paul Ryan. Many of those candidates have declined runs, but unsurprisingly Jeb Bush walks away the winner with 27 percent.

Though, Romney's victory is far from certain. Tim Pawlenty doesn't have Jeb Bush's formal endorsement yet, but the pair seem chummy. Huntsman, who was just in Miami today, has decided to headquarter his campaign in Florida. Those two could chip away at Romney's base, while a more conservative, Tea Party-aligned candidate like Bachmann could consolidate more support among more right-leaning voters.

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